


Dust in the wind

by kalkoenvsneoklak



Series: We can be heroes [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A LOT of Character Death, Adaptation of the movie into the SCOM verse, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Depression, Endgame, Established Relationship, Everybody loves Peter, Infinity War, Multi, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Pregnant Character, The Blib, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trauma, Wizards, space, the snap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29540073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalkoenvsneoklak/pseuds/kalkoenvsneoklak
Summary: As crazy space-aliens suddenly disrupt the peace everybody found on Earth, the Avengers (and family) are suddenly pulled into another battle of life or death. Only this time, the whole universe might be at stake.Tony is finally comfortable in his role as Peter's Dad, and his relationship with Steve is progressing swimmingly. Wanda and Vision need a little break from their 'normal' life and seek a vacation, while Steve, Natasha and Sam are heading out to pay a visit to Bucky back in Wakanda. Everything looks like another normal day, until they're thrown back into the reality that they were never really out of danger.
Relationships: Gamora/Peter Quill, Happy Hogan/Pepper Potts, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Jane Foster/Thor, Loki/OFC, May Parker (Spider-Man)/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: We can be heroes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170248
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings in the end-notes
> 
> As you can see, while the other stories following after Being A Stark are all put in the series called 'Sweet Child of Mine', I've decided to steer this story from that verse, and put it into a new one. This means that the story will not be compliant to 'Something About Peter', 'Don't Wanna Go' or most of the Timestamps. The stories that will still be included are 'Golden Locks, Silver Arms' and 'Product of a Murderer'.  
> I've put a lot of thought about it, discussed it with Caspinn a few times, and decided this would be the best way to separate those two stories.  
> It took us a while to bring this one up. I started writing this one May, 2018, and look how much time has passed. I haven't even finished the story, haven't even gotten past the scene where Tony, Peter and Strange meet up with the Guardians, but I realize that I work better knowing that there's a chapter I need to finish in time.  
> The story will contain scenes from Infinity War and Endgame, but it will be adapted to the story 'Being A Stark' and will focus on a happy ending because screw sadness everybody deserves to live. 
> 
> This story also features an Original Character created by Caspinn. Her story is told in 'Product of a Murderer', which has been finished.

**_HILDE_ **

_Earth it is_.

That’s what Thor had said about a month before the ship came in.

Earth. Brunhilde has never been there before. She wouldn’t mind, seeing what the fuss is about. She would even like to meet that ‘human’ Thor seems to adore so much. Loki mentioned her a bit earlier, and Hilde found herself intrigued immediately, because she must be a great warrior to catch the eye of Thor, right?

 _Earth it is_. Yet, as they set course, fully aware that it would probably take them about a month, maybe two to even get there. But that’s alright. They have plenty of stops on their way where they can fuel, restock on their supplies. People of Asgard carry a general amount of wealth, so if everybody puts their stuff together, it would be possible to actually buy something to keep all these mouths fed.

They don’t even make it to the first stop. Hilde is only walking through the hallway, passing Thor’s chambers, when suddenly Loki comes scrambling out of the room, face pale and eyes open wide.

“He’s here,” is all he whispers. “He’s here. He’s come to get it.”

“Brother?” Thor asks in confusion. When he notices Hilde walking there he looks at her with a questioning gaze. She just shrugs, indicating that he doesn’t have any clue, either. Loki has never really been a character that’s easy to read; too unpredictable, too hellbent on stabbing you in the back to protect his own skin. It’s a form of self-preservation that Hilde has to admire one way or another.

“She needs to leave. We have to get her out of here,” Loki then says, suddenly sprinting back the way Hilde came from. He leaves her and Thor staring at him as his green cape moves with the air. By the time Hilde and Thor decide to follow him, he’s already out of the hallway.

“Loki?” Thor asks, a bit louder than earlier. His voice is strong, low, easy to hear. The fact that there’s no answer means that Loki’s not listening at him. Slowly, Hilde accompanies the new King of Asgard through the dark hallway. Most of the people are asleep, though it’s possible a lot of them are awake, still. It’s hard to keep a track on days when you’re up in the dark of Space. There’s no sun, no day nor night. There’s just… space.

“Loki?” Hilde asks as well. She opens a few doors, but finds noting other than dimmed lights. Thor, too, looks into rooms. By the time they find an open door with the lights still on inside of it, they walk inside to find Loki grabbing Yaël’s arm, pulling her along in a seemingly desperate way.

“You don’t understand, you need to leave!” Loki urges on, apparently not bothering to keep his voice down.

“I need to what now?” the girl asks in return, pulling her hand back without any trouble. She then rubs her wrist, frowning down at the God of Mischief as he throws his own arms up in the air in annoyance.

“Listen to me, Yaël,” Loki then says, suddenly grabbing both her arms and gently shaking her. She opens her eyes in surprise, her gaze passing on Hilde and Thor shortly the moment she catches them standing there. It’s clear in her eyes that she’s got no idea what’s going on here. “Thanos is here. You remember him, right?”

And the room suddenly goes cold. Hilde knows that’s not just in her mind; the temperature has seriously dropped down a few degrees, all due to the girl Loki’s desperately holding on to. Her face is looking just as pale as Loki’s, her eyes full of horror, memories. That name means something to her that should probably scare them. The fact is, Hilde needs more than a name to be scared off. Even hearing Hela’s name didn’t bring fear into her. Sure, it pissed her off and it brought back a whole lot of memories she’d rather drink away, but nobody’s perfect, right?

“He knows I’m here?” Yaël asks.

“I don’t think so, which is why you need to leave _now_.”

“If he doesn’t know why I’m here, why _is_ he here, then?” Yaël asks. Then she gives Loki a short look, disappointment suddenly clear on her face. “Loki, you didn’t-?”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t stay here to chat,” he returns, avoiding the accusation she was obviously about to throw at him. He grabs her arm once again and then locks eyes with Hilde. “Take her away from here. As far away as you can possibly get her. The ship divides in two. Grab as many civilians as you can and get out of here.”

Loki sounds urgent, agitated. Hilde can’t remember ever seeing him like this, but it’s not like she’s known him for that long, either. When she turns towards Thor, she finds him equally perplexed by his brother’s behavior.

“Loki, what in Father’s name are you talking about?” he asks, though his voice sounds more like he’s demanding it. He doesn’t sound too amused, clearly not liking the fact that Loki and Yaël know things that he doesn’t. Hilde pretty much shares that feeling.

“There’s no time, Thor. You need to leave as well.”

“I am not leaving this ship. Who-ever this person is, whatever he wants, we’ll meet him and we’ll find a solution,” Thor says, crossing his arms and pulling up a smirk. Hilde feels compelled at rolling her eyes upon seeing the smugness on his face. Diplomacy, it’s an idea he’s trying to follow, though Hilde’s not sure if it’s a process he can actually follow through.

“Staying here would be suicide,” Loki bites back at his brother.

“In that case, Asgard will have had four different rulers in the span of only two months. I would call that a story to tell the future generations, no?” Thor smiles his teeth bare at his brother, who seems about close to just storm back out and smash his head against the wall.

“Thor, you don’t know Thanos like we do,” Yaël starts to explain. “He manipulated us into working for him. He brainwashed me, took away my free will and made me cause destruction all over New York.”

“He can’t be as bad as Hela,” Hilde intercepts. Yaël shakes her head, then.

“Maybe not, but unless anybody here carries another Crown of Surtur and the Eternal Flame, there’s about no way for us to fight through this one once again. Except, maybe…”

“Are you about to say: ‘the Hulk’?” Loki asks. Hilde has noticed the uneasiness Loki has been carrying around the green giant. According to Thor, there’s some sort of past between them that did not end very good, and he felt the need to assure that the past had nothing to do with anything romantic, which Hilde hadn’t even thought of from the start. Sometimes she wonders if it was such a good idea after all to make Thor the King of a homeless group of people.

“It’s possible, yeah,” the other girl responds to Loki’s suggestion. That’s when Thor seems to finally get enough of it.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry but if this matter is as urgent as you’ve claimed it to be, then we must start evacuating the ship now,” Thor says. He turns back towards Hilde and nods her way. “Search for Korg and Miek, let them help with the evacuation. Then search the escape pods, with luck, there’s enough place for everybody.”

“Escaping won’t be enough,” Yaël mutters sadly. “He’ll hunt everybody down, eventually…”

There’s a loud crash. The lights flicker for a bit, the entire ship shaking. Everybody’s heads turn towards the window, though nothing is to be seen. Immediately, they hurry towards another room. Without telling anything to the person residing there, they storm inside. The man, who had been looking at some video of some sort of space opera looks startled.

“Excuse me?” he asks, horrified by the sudden intrusion, until he sees who exactly it is that stormed inside. “Oh, your majesty? Is there something the matter?”

Nobody looks at him as the man gets on his feet. He joins the others towards the window. Hilde doesn’t even know this man’s name, but that’s not difficult since she’s not been in Asgard for many, many years.

Outside the window, in the deep dark of space, there’s the large ship from before. It’s a bit closer than before, and it’s obvious that they’ve opened fire.

Thor suddenly turns towards the man, who looks like he’s about to crap his own pants. “You, where is your screen?” he asks. The man frowns for a moment, but then points towards his bed. Then, there’s another shot hitting the ship. The lights turn down once again, coming right back up immediately.

Thor doesn’t bother to wait. He hurries towards the screen, taps away on it before sighing.

“How does this monstrous device work?” he asks in annoyance, tapping his fingers hard on the holographic screen but getting nothing from it. Loki rolls his eyes before yanking the screen away from him.

“You’re insufferable,” he mutters out. Hilde turns back to the window to have another look at the ship. But no matter how long she looks, she can’t think of any way to escape that. Despite being so large, they’ve snuck up on them so easily, so surely it has a few tricks up its sleeve. “The shields are at seventy-five percent capacity, but it’s dropping with each hit.”

“Call out for the evacuation,” Thor says. Loki starts tapping against the screen, but when Hilde turns back around, she notices Yaël putting her hand on Loki’s to stop him.

“It’s too late,” she says. Loki shudders.

“Then we must get you out. Go with Hilde and Thor. I’ll hold him off with the Hulk for as long as we can.”

“We can’t leave these people to die,” she counters.

“You are the holder of an Infinity Stone. We can’t let him get to it.”

“Infinity Stone?” Thor asks, confused. Hilde just has absolutely no idea what this is about, but she doesn’t ask. Instead, she starts running back towards the door after the ship gets another hit.

“We’ll try evac,” she says, feeling like she’s the one who needs to take control of the situation if these people can’t get their priorities in order. “Now come on, get into action.”

She runs into the hallway, expecting the others to follow her. Getting to the hallway computer, she enters the ship’s settings and starts up the emergency alarm. Almost instantly, people start walking out of their rooms to see what’s going on.

“Alright people get off your lazy asses, we’re under attack and we need to leave _now_!” She quickly looks back at the screen. Shield capacity is only at twenty percent now. That’s not enough. “Move it people, come on!”

Chaos starts, people begin running into the hallway, heading in the direction where the emergency lights lead them to. After having a couple of people passing her by, she quickly follows them into the main hangar.

But then there’s a final blast, this one sounding louder than the other one. But she’s not near a computer, she can’t check if there’s any of the shield left, but she figures there isn’t. Crap, they should have moved sooner.

“HILDE!” somebody shouts. Hilde turns around, finding Loki and Yaël standing a bit more in the back. Loki points at her, indicating for Hilde to get back there. She sighs and runs back into their direction.

“What’s the matter?” she asks once she’s reached them.

“I know it seems like a selfish act, but I can assure you that it’s not. You must take Yaël away from here as quickly as you can.”

“You’re right, it looks selfish, indeed,” Hilde mutters out, crossing her arms. She looks back at the bleached-haired girl who looks like she hates the idea of running just as much as Hilde. “What’s the deal here?”

“All Thanos wants is to bring balance into the Universe by killing half of its population,” Loki explains. “He’s been invading planets, performed genocide to prove his point.”

Hilde looks at Loki’s hand as he articulates what he means by snapping his fingers together.

“Yeah, that sounds dangerous enough. And you said she holds a stone?” Hilde asks.

“Yes,” Loki says. “But the thing about this stone is that Thanos cannot sense this one, while he can sense the others. He has no idea it’s here, and we need to keep it that way.”

“But he already knows it’s in me,” Yaël quickly counters, sounding annoyed by it all. They’re interrupted by the sound of shouts in the front of the crowd. The three turn to the source of it, finding that the hangar doors have just opened.

Only, the persons starting to walk inside are not people they recognize.

“That’s him,” Yaël mutters out, taking a step back. There are five figures standing there at the door-opening. The one sticking out the most is the figure in the middle; a hulk-sized, hulk-built character holding up his balled fist. From the back of his hand, a purple light seems to shine.

“People of Asgard,” a voice starts saying. “Rejoice, for you have been saved by Thanos and his children.”

Loki quickly turns towards Hilde, suddenly pushing her towards the door.

“ _Get out_ ,” he hisses at them, and Hilde can’t help but let her mouth fall open. Her first reaction would be to push him back, but they clearly have more important matters to think about.

Hilde has no idea where the Hulk is hiding. The big guy is probably still in his chambers, sleeping through the entire invasion. It’s Thor, instead, who comes marching in.

“As King of Asgard, I do not accept your presence on this ship. Leave at once!” Thor’s loud voice calls out while he walks through the horde of people around them. The Purple man in the front just smirks. The other four creatures around him give their leader a short look before they move forward as well. Thor grabs the first one by the throat, pushing him back without much effort. The other three start pointing their weapons at him instantly.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the female says, giving Thor a smirk.

“Hold down your weapons,” the leader, Thanos, then says, holding up a hand to indicate the order. The female hesitates for one more second before she, along with her companion, lowers her weapon. “You know what you need to do.”

The four nod, marching past Thor and directing their attention to the people of Asgard.

“I want two sides, one side over here and one over there,” the one Thor threw on the ground starts saying, pointing at the two different locations he mentions. “Divide yourself equally. Co-operate, and things will be more pleasant for everybody.”

Suddenly, someone grabs Hilde’s arm. When she turns around, she sees Yaël looking at her with those golden eyes of hers.

“We need to get the Hulk,” she whispers, clearly not intending to follow Loki’s orders, either. Hilde quickly nods, casting the crowd around them one last look before hurrying after Yaël. Standing in front of the door is Korg, who gives them one short nod before shielding the door away completely. Silently, Hilde opens it, and the two women get through.

“I’ll start up the escape pods, you go get Bruce, alright?” Hilde asks. Yaël nods, heading into the direction of where the Hulk is supposed to be. Hilde wonders, for a short second, if she’s not making the biggest mistake of them all by separating. But, she figures they don’t have much time. They need to hurry if they don’t want half of their people massacred.

Hilde only barely arrives at the escape pods, where she sees the two people she already sent there earlier still typing down furiously on their screens.

“Any luck?” she asks, running up to them to see how far they got.

“We’ve discovered that the ship can divide itself in two. If we can get everybody to the second quadrant of the ship, she could hop into that wormhole over there and try to hide on a nearby planet.” The man points through the window, but Hilde can’t see the wormhole he’s talking about. Still, she’s sure he knows what he talks about. She’s about ready to say something else, when suddenly she can hear footsteps nearing.

They’re running, too many, too light. It can’t be Yaël or the Hulk.

“Hide!” she hisses at the two men, and instantly she climbs up into the air-vent. She holds out a hand for the others to follow her. With a grunt, she gets him up.

Before they can reach out for the second man, the doors open and some sort of army starts storming inside. The person, Hilde can’t say what it is, exactly, says something to the man. Before he can answer, he’s suddenly pulled along, through the door.

The other man – she needs to learn their names, damnit – almost starts to scream for his friend, who is taken along, but Hilde quickly slaps her hand against his mouth, shutting him up forcibly. They stay quiet, breathing heavily while the man starts sobbing silently.

Only after ten minutes do they dare jump back out of the vent. Hilde holds her hand over the Dragonfang, keeping herself prepared in case she needs it.

“They took Agnar,” the man then whispers out, looking at his hands disbelievingly. He’s shivering, looking like he’s at the verge of collapsing. Hilde turns towards him, grabbing his arms and shaking him out of his state.

“Hey! Look at me!” she calls out. “What’s your name?”

“O-Odal,” he returns.

“Listen, Odal. I’m sorry they took your friend-“

“My brother,” Odal interrupts with a shaky voice. Hilde nods.

“Your brother. What we need to do right now is get the second quadrant of this ship ready, do you understand?”

Odal nods, though with still obvious pain in his eyes.

“You get the ship ready, and I’ll get everybody – including your brother – on board, alright?”

There’s another nod from Odal. He sniffs his nose, turning towards the computer and suddenly starting to type things down furiously.

“I need at least ten minutes, maybe fifteen at the most,” he says, his voice sounding a bit more certain now. Hilde nods, pushing the button to open the door and carefully looking through.

“If you hear anybody approaching, clear the screen and get back into that vent.” Once she sees nobody, she starts running again. She doesn’t even give Odal the time to answer to her instruction.

Shit, she hasn’t agreed to a meeting point with Yaël! For all she knows, the girl can be back into the main hanger with the others! With a grunt, she starts running back in that direction. She only stops when she hears another patrol pass by. Quickly, she presses the first button she finds, the room next to her opening up. Without a sound, she runs inside. After a quick look, she realizes that her only hiding spot is…

“Crap,” she mutters out. This sucks. Though when she hears the footsteps nearing, she gets back into action, running towards the refrigerator and crawling inside. It’s cold, making her wrap her arms around her body as she shivers, crawling inside deeper.

Why would the Grand Master need a fridge that looks like maze?

She’s relieved, though, when she finds a hatch on top of her. Carefully, she opens it, looking through the small lift and finding an empty room. This whole ship is weird, she thinks as she jumps out.

Once back into the hallway, she hides herself three more times from the people. When she hears loud noises coming from the hangar, she stops in her tracks.

No way, she can’t be too late already, can she?

She starts running, plunging the Dragonfang inside a couple of the guards’ throats before storming inside the hangar. That’s where she finds nothing but destruction in front of her.

The people have been divided into the two sides, but it’s obvious that one the one closest to Hilde is still standing. She clutches at her chest, feeling a strong pain all of the sudden.

These are the people they’ve fought so hard to protect. The people they sacrificed their home for.

And now there’s barely any of them left.

Hilde can hear Thor scream. He’s struggling, fighting, but even from where Hilde is standing she can see that it doesn’t do them any good. Thanos’ large hand grabs hold of Thor’s head, pulling him off the ground and throwing him against a wall, strong enough to break even a few of the King’s bones.

There are people crying, children in tears upon looking at their slaughtered families. Hilde even notices a few people she came to befriend during their travels. Her eyes start tearing up, but she doesn’t let it stop her.

While the order’s attention is directed at Loki, who is still standing there – untouched – Hilde grabs the arms of a few of the remaining Asgardians.

“Come with me,” she whispers at them. Immediately, the first few people start following her. The others quickly gesture for their friends and families to follow. With great sadness, Hilde comes to the realization that Agnar is lying on the ground on the other side.

“Where are we going?” somebody asks behind her. Hilde recognizes Korg following her. So he made it out, that’s good. She’s going to need his strength in the last bit.

“The second quadrant,” Hilde says. “I need you to take everybody there. Somebody’s waiting for them.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Korg then asks, pulling out his weapon and opening it with a dramatic move. It’s painfully obvious how Miek is missing next to him.

“I need to get a few more people.”

“Ah, yes, we can’t leave the King behind,” Korg agrees. There’s something heavy in his voice Hilde notices immediately.

“Have you seen Heimdall?” she asks. Korg lets out a sad sigh.

“He was on the other side. Though last time I saw him, he was still breathing.”

Hilde nods. Then, after a short goodbye, she starts running back into the opposite direction. First, she needs to get Yaël, make sure that they’re out of the ship before the bad guys realize half the civilization is missing.

Hearing the Hulk roaring in the hangar, it’s obvious that Yaël managed to bring him along. She only hopes they haven’t found _her_ yet. Just as quietly as before, she opens the door back up. Hidden behind from debris, she finds Yaël hidden, looking at the fight in front of them. Everybody has their backs turned in their direction, so Hilde comes to join her.

They don’t speak. Hilde gestures at her to stay quiet and Yaël listens. Then she gestures towards Thor, Loki and the Hulk, indicating that they need to get them out of here. That’s when Hilde notices something in Yaël’s eyes.

She doesn’t think they’ll manage to do that.

Hilde understands why when she sees Thanos throwing the Hulk down on the ground as if he weighs nothing to him. She holds in the surprised gasp. There’s a low muttering somewhere on the side of the fallen Asgardians, and suddenly a bright, colored light engulfs the Hulk, lifting him off the ground and making him disappear from the ship.

It all happens so fast, Hilde can barely even understand it. Yaël has to press her hand onto Hilde’s mouth when Thanos nears Heimdall, looking down at him like he’s nothing more than an ant about to be crushed by his boot.

“That was a mistake,” they hear him say right before Heimdall is stabbed through the chest. They can hear Thor scream in anguish, the sound of it hitting Hilde right in the heart. She knows how good friends the two of them were. She just wishes that, after everything, Thor wouldn’t have to lose another person he holds dear.

It’s not given to them, obviously.

Heimdall loses all his strength, dropping his arms and his head onto the floor with the weapon stuck in his chest.

“You’re going to die for that!” Thor promises Thanos, voice broken, hurt, words hard. Hilde only notices the tear when it rolls off her cheek onto the ground. Meanwhile, the annoying one of the five gestures towards Thor, and some metal flies up to his mouth to prevent him from talking further. Then he leans down, taking the Cube from the ground.

“My humble personage bows before your grandeur,” he starts saying, walking up to Thanos, who takes off his helmet and starts removing his complete armor. “No other being has ever had the might, nay, the nobility, to wield not one but two Infinity Stones.”

Annoying guy hands Thanos the cube. The purple giant looks at it with some sort of wonder in his eyes before he crushes it with one bare hand. There’s a short blue blast, followed by Thanos blowing the dust away.

“The universe lies within your grasp,” Annoying guy continues, averting his eyes from Thanos, as do the others. The four accomplices look in fascination as Thanos places whatever was inside that cube onto the golden gauntlet he’s wielding on his left hand. 

“I know of two more stones,” he says, voice loud and heavy. Hilde feels Yaël shake next to her. When she averts her eyes, she finds Loki looking at them, eyes panicked, clearly telling them they need to leave. They don’t move, though. Hilde needs to get them out of here. “Gather the army, prepare for battle. Once we’re ready, we’ll head out.”

“Father, we will not fail you,” the female says, surprising Hilde. _Father?_ He’s supposed to be their parent? In what universe is that plausible?

“If I might interject,” Loki suddenly says, no longer paying attention towards Hilde nor Yaël. Thor, meanwhile, is still breathing heavily, his shoulders shaking, as he’s lying on the ground. “If you’re going _there_ , you might want a guide. I do have a bit of experience in that area.”

No way, that stinking bastard! Is he really going to switch sides like that to save his own skin? He didn’t want them out of there to save them; he wanted them gone so they wouldn’t know he was such a sneaky weasel.

“If you consider failure experience,” Thanos calls out, unimpressed by Loki’s words. The God of mischief lets out a small, breathy laugh.

“I consider experience, experience,” he returns. “Almighty Thanos. I, Loki, Prince of Asgard…”

He stops for a bit, turning to look at Thor, making the King look up as well with a sad expression in his eyes.

“…Odinson, the rightful King of Jotunheim, God of Mischief, do hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity.” Standing in front of Thanos, Hilde sees him suddenly jumping up, holding a small knife in his hand as he attempts to stab it into Thanos’ neck. She hears Yaël make a small worried sound when they see him fail. Instead, Thanos grabs Loki by the throat and pulls him off the ground. Thor starts struggling against his binds, but he seems overpowered in every way. 

“’Undying’,” Thanos mumbles out, grabbing a hold of Loki’s wrist and pushing it aside, making Loki drop his weapon. The struggle on the God’s face is clear, and it does not bode well for any of them. “You should choose our words more carefully.”

It’s horrible in every way to watch somebody being choked to death. Even as a God, Loki struggles to free himself from Thanos’ hand. He swings his legs, shakes his entire body. His face turns blue, though. The two brothers trying to escape, but neither of them succeeding.

And then Loki’s eyes find theirs for a short moment. Not too long, just a few seconds. Not enough for Thanos to think there’s somebody behind him. Yaël is shaking next to her, and Hilde immediately throws her arm over the girl’s shoulder.

“We need to leave,” she hisses at her, barely audible. Yaël doesn’t move. A tear rolls over her cheek, falling on the floor underneath them.

“You… will never be… a god,” Loki whispers out. After that, he stops moving. Hilde pulls on Yaël’s arm, trying to get her back on her feet. Where Thor is kneeling on the ground, they can hear a faint ‘no’, but the metal thing on his mouth prevents him from talking further.

“No resurrections this time,” Thanos mutters out, throwing Loki’s body in Thor’s direction and walking towards the rest of the order.

“No!” Yaël suddenly calls out through her grief. Hilde literally pulls her off the ground, towards the open door. She doesn’t pay attention to the fact that the group of five can see them scuttering off. All she can do is keep an arm over Yaël’s face, and hope that the weird hair-color she’s sporting is different enough from the way Thanos remembers her.

“Let them go,” they hear him say as they enter the hallway. Hilde holds on to Yaël’s arms as they run towards the escape bay.

“We can’t leave them!” Yaël shouts towards Hilde.

“They would want us to leave!” she returns. “Keeping you away from that creep is more important than saving the King.” She can’t believe what she’s saying; once upon a time, guarding and protecting the royal family was her only mission. Now her only priority is making sure that the Asgardians arrive on Earth safely, though without a King. It bites.

Hilde ignores her own tears as she pulls the other girl along in the hallway. Fear creeps up to her when some glowing, purple light starts surrounding them, creeping up into the entirety of the ship. Shit, they’re running out of time. This whole ship might just explode on them!

“Hurry up!” Hilde shouts, pulling on Yaël’s hand even harder. They run as fast as they can, going from one hallway to the other. They notice a few of those ‘guards’ from before, looking just as panicked as she feels. With the Dragonfang, she slams a few on the head.

It’s pretty much a miracle that they get on the second quadrant in time. Before the flames can reach them, the ship seems to have separated itself already. That means that they’re going to have to jump, then. Hilde wraps an arm around Yaël’s middle, and without hesitation, she slams onto the button of the door. Immediately, they get sucked out into space, almost literally smashing against the ship before they get to float into the emptiness of space. Hilde holds on to some part of the ship, turning around to find Yaël still holding her hand. It’s clear on her face, though, that she can’t breathe at all.

“Shit!” Hilde mutters, though she can’t hear her own voice. There’s no sound in space, it’s almost as if she’s gone deaf. “Hold on!”

Looking as if her face is starting to freeze over, Yaël closes her eyes before Hilde can pull her closer. They don’t have much time! Hilde takes another look at the other part of the ship; the one Thor’s still on. Just for a second, she gets to see it, until it’s replaced by a bright purple light, a force hitting her right in the face. It’s a heat, purple flames, loose pieces of the ship. The explosion pushes the whole ship back, making it almost impossible for Hilde to hold on to the girl.

“No, no, no!” she mutters out, tightening her grip on Yaël’s hand. She does not look good at all, covered by dust and ashes. At least she’s not burned, though that is honestly the most surprising thing right now.

With effort, Hilde holds her close, forcing herself to the opening door of the ship. It’s going to take all of her strength, and she sincerely hopes that there’s nobody on the other side of the door. With slow movements, she types in the override code, hitting confirmation. When the door opens, some sort of table comes flying by, missing Hilde and Yaël only barely.

With aching muscles and loud screams that nobody can hear, Hilde forces the two of them inside, before using her foot to automatically close the door. Instantly, their lungs are filled with air again. Yaël starts coughing as she seems to choke on something. Hilde quickly sits her up, slapping her on the back.

“We made it,” she says with a hoarse voice.

But instead of rejoicing, the two start sobbing, instead, holding on to each other as the realization of what they’ve lost hits them.


	2. The Asgardians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, the story is not just in Hilde's POV. The next chapter will bring us back to Tony!

_**HILDE** _

Hilde is aware that they’ve been lucky, though the term ‘lucky’ doesn’t exactly seems to cut it in this situation. Not only is Asgard destroyed and they’ve all lost their homes, but it’s obvious now that close to half of the remaining Asgardian population has been brutally massacred by Thanos and his children.

She looks at the people that had been on the ship, scattered around the place and glad to take another breath of fresh air. But there are children who have lost their parents and vice-versa. People who had to let go of their loved ones because they weren’t fast enough in the evacuation. Somewhere, Korg tries to keep everybody’s spirits up but it’s clear that it isn’t working.

The person she avoids looking at is Yaël, who looks just horrible in all possible ways. She’s gotten some burn marks from the explosion; parts of her hair has been scorched off because of it. On her forehead there’s a large cut from when they were smashed against the ship. She’s bruised all over, as well.

Hilde figures that if she hadn’t been Asgardian, she would have looked about the same way.

“How are you doing?” she asks without looking away from the people of Asgard. Their ship has only just crashed down on this open field – lucky for that! – but there’s no doubt that soon some special forces or security will come down to check on the commotion.

“Peachy,” Yaël answers bitterly.

“Head still vague over what happened up there?”

At that, Hilde gets an angry look from the girl; one that’s clearly tired of that same question.

As it turns out, the hit Yaël sustained on her head when they moved from one ship to the other jarred her head once again. Apparently this isn’t the first time she’s lost some memories, but clearly it’s not something she’s growing used to.

“It’s like my head is just… mush! Just the smallest hit and I lose everything,” she complains. Then she sighs, dropping her gaze. “Almost everything.”

Hilde squeezes her shoulder, knowing what she’s talking about. Or rather, who she’s talking about. To be fair, she knows close to nothing about the girl’s relationship with Loki, but she figures there must have been something there. 

“You wish you could have forgotten?”

Yaël glares ahead once again, squeezing her own arms that are wrapped around her knees. Her lips are pressed into a thin line.

“Maybe,” she admits. “Either way, Thanos is going to pay for what he did.” She grits her teeth, the tone in her voice nearly giving Hilde shivers.

“You knew that man?” she wonders. On the journey back, nothing much has been said about it but during the invasion she already caught that they were acquainted. And clearly not in the good way.

“It’s a long story,” she admits. Right when Hilde expects her to speak, there’s the sound of vehicles approaching. They’re all black, stopping close together until one particular man gets out, taking a device to his mouth.

“ _Attention, this is Phil Coulson on behalf of SHIELD. Please identify yourself and state your business._ ”

Hilde sighs. So much for the calm they’ve been having for now. Better take this matter into her own had.

That’s what Thor would have wanted, after all.

* * *

“So what’s your name?”

She sighs once more. This must have been the third time the question is asked, each time by a different person wearing the same black outfit. All men, too. Though this one seems different. There’s something about him something in his expression.

He’s seen things.

“My name is Brunnhilde, I’m a Valkyrie of Asgard and I need to get back to my people.” It’s the same thing she’s answered each time, but never has the person in front of her indicated that he’s going to go with her wishes. In fact, she could break out of this room without trouble but the point of them coming here is to find refuge. Being violent is not going to help their case.

“Hello, Brunnhilde, my name is Phil Coulson, I’m an Agent of SHIELD.” The man puts a dark hand onto his chest as he introduces himself. A prosthetic, she sees. Primitive technology, but probably considered high-tech on this planet. Hilde leans her elbows onto the table, moving her head closer to Coulson’s.

“Well, Phil, Son of Coul, what can I do for you?”

“You can start by giving us some answers. After that I promise I’ll let you rejoin your people but I can assure you that they’re well being taken care of. My team’s tending to the injured, and they’re being handed out food and drinks.”

“Good,” Hilde says in relief. They’re not going to treat them as prisoners. That’s good. “You don’t seem too surprised of our existence. I thought the people of Earth weren’t aware of extraterrestrial life?”

“They aren’t. Or they weren’t, until 2012 when a wormhole from space was opened upon one of our cities by your friend Loki. But we are aware of the Asgardians, which is where my first question comes from: ‘Is Thor with you?’”

Hilde takes a deep breath. All signs would say that Thor is dead, but she’s seen him in action. Asgardians can take a hit, and they can certainly survive in space without air for a long time – which is why she didn’t have a problem while Yaël was suffocating.

There’s just the matter of that purple explosion, and Loki’s death. It makes in unclear if Thor would not just… let go…

“He is not with us,” she answers.

“Can you tell us where he is?”

Hilde shrugs, pointing upwards. “Probably still up there, if he’s still alive.” She sighs once more, dropping her hand. “Asgard has lost the entire royal family in such a short time span next to their home. I need to make sure that they’re alright.”

“The entire royal family?”

“Yes, the Queen died a few years back. Odin just last month, as well as Hela – though nobody was really rooting for her to be fair as she was the reason our planet’s destroyed.”

“And Hela is?”

“Thor’s sister.”

“Right. Another detail he forgot to mention.”

“Oh, but he didn’t know,” Hilde assures him. “To be fair, he thought up until last month that Loki had been dead, too. Turns out that wasn’t true and he’d been pretending to be the King the entire time. I tell you, that family is just weird.”

“How about you just start from the beginning?”

Hilde sighs again, already tired of this. But she figures the best way to get back to her people is by doing what this man asks of her, so she starts speaking.

By the time she’s finished Coulson leans towards the table, pressing onto a button of a device Hilde hadn’t even seen before. It looks like some primitive recording machine.

“Alright, I’ve got all I need. Thank you for your cooperation,” Coulson says. He stands up, holding out a hand for her to shake. Hilde frowns at it before taking it, not at all holding back her strength and finding at least a bit of joy in seeing him squirm

After that, she’s out again. Back to her people.

* * *

Lady Sif returns the seventh day after their arrival. She comes in search of Thor and her companions, only to learn that nobody’s left. None of the Warriors Three have made it. All her friends are gone.

But Sif does not cry. She stands strong, assuring Hilde that she will look out for Asgard until Thor’s return. Because she is certain that he will be back; he’s not taken out so easily.

They’re relocated to a place somewhere in ‘Norway’. An old city that has been abandoned due to too small a population. They rebuild it, and name it New Asgard to honor their home. And it’s far from their Kingdom – the Midgardians even call it a ‘City’ rather than a Kingdom – but it’s a start.

Hilde meets Thor’s friend Erik Selvig not long after. The man is originally from Norway but relocated to America for his studies. He works for SHIELD as it turns out, but not all the time. The dark-haired woman that came with him also adds that he might have been crazy for a good part of a year. Hilde choses to ignore that part.

She’s also introduced to Thor’s ex-girlfriend. A short woman called Jane Foster with a big attitude and even bigger guts. According to Thor, she slapped both him and Loki without hesitation. Hilde likes this woman already. When Hilde asks why she would go to New Asgard, Jane simply explains it with ‘I’m waiting for my boyfriend to return so I can tear him a new one.” Whatever that means, Hilde is sure that it will be good to watch.

Time goes on for a little while, yet there’s still no word of any return on Thor’s part. The weather turns colder, the season starts to change into winter. Eventually, Yaël is called away, taken to Switzerland by SHIELD for something called the ‘accords’, whatever that means. Hilde offers to go with her, but she refuses, saying she needs to see this through on her own.

Yaël doesn’t return; she gets back to America, back to her friends. And eventually, Hilde gets an invitation from Bruce – who appears to be back as well – who suggests she comes over to the States to celebrate something called ‘Christmas’.

It’s a good celebration, a good distraction. And to be fair, the whole business about this Thanos completely slips her mind from meeting all these new people. After all, he’s just a guy who collects some stones for his stupid armband.

And seeing Yaël at this celebration she sees that it’s good for her to be among friends. It seems like she’s a bit more at peace with Loki’s end.

That is, until it comes to her attention two months later that Yaël is with child.

Oh, how things are complicated now. But at the same time, upon hearing this news, Asgard becomes delighted; after all, there’s an heir to the throne to be born. And sure, Loki might not have been Asgardian by blood, and neither is this girl, but it’s still the child of a prince of Asgard which is enough for the people to feel hope again.

So Hilde makes it her special mission to keep this child alive, no matter what.


	3. The Flying Donut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, back at Tony. After this, it's going to be one chapter a week! 
> 
> Warnings: some Infinity War dialogue

**TONY STARK**

Tony hates running. It makes him all sweaty, sticky, and reminds him of just how unfit he is due to the lack of training in the past few weeks. Okay, no, months.

But physical exercise is necessary, according to Dr. Cho. And to be fair, the only exercise he’s been having in the past few months is the mindblowing, extremely hot sex he’s been having with Steve. Because, to be completely honest, the sex is exhausting in so many ways! Tony shivers even thinking about it now while he runs, though it’s the good kind of shiver. Exhausting, yes, but still good, let’s not forget that!

Oh, right, he’s running. He’s not alone. Tony quickly taps on Pepper’s shoulder, indicating the need for a break. The woman turns towards him, her face looking as red as Tony’s feels, her strawberry blonde hair in a pony tail. Her blue eyes meet with his, and Tony’s a hundred percent sure that she could run five more rounds.

“So, did you sleep well?” Pepper asks all of the sudden. Tony rolls his eyes.

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Tony mutters back. “Of course, I didn’t sleep well. The bed is so cold.”

Pepper snorts at his complaining. She gently pats him on the shoulder before moving forward again. The trick here is to never stand still during a jog. If he would stop walking, it would become extremely hard for him to pick it back up again. He might just summon the armor here and make it fly him home, that’s how tired he is.

“You always were a cuddler in your sleep,” Pepper jokes. Tony throws her a glare, but she ignores it. 

“There’s something I need your opinion on,” Tony says, though he’s not too sure how he’s going to put it into words. “Do you know that kind of dream where you think you have to pee, and then you wake up-“

“And you really have to pee, yeah, everybody does,” Pepper responds, looking a bit confused at Tony’s question.

“Pepp, last night I had a dream-“

“That you needed to pee?”

“No! No, nothing like that. Just, it could be a coincidence, I don’t know, but… I dreamt that-“ Tony stops mid-sentence, taking a deep breath. “I had this super weird dream of the Steve and me, with Peter, and then there was another baby,” Tony says quickly, afraid to be interrupted again. The smile on Pepper’s face falls, then, and now instead she’s looking confused.

“A ba- you mean Yaël’s kid?” she asks, referring to the very pregnant woman who is currently in New Asgard, drinking hot soup and keeping her feet up on a pillow, being constantly watched by Hilde who will glare at anybody who even looks at the girl.

“No, no, no, _our_ kid! As if a kid that was legally _ours_! Steve’s and mine,” Tony continues. Pepper stares for a second, but then she shakes her head.

“No,” she says shortly.

“What do you mean, no?” Tony counters. He stops walking without really thinking about it, putting his hands on his hips while he tries to stare her down. Pepper doesn’t look too impressed by it.

“I mean no, as in, you haven’t even been together an entire year. It’s too soon to start talking about kids.”

“But it just _felt_ so real! So I thought, ‘maybe Steve is on the same page’, no? Maybe, somehow, our minds melted together in a way this night and we were shown something we both want or need, no?”

“Your minds melted even though Steve’s in Wakanda and you’re here?” Pepper points out. Tony groans, rolling his eyes and waving away the comment. “Tony, be realistic here.”

Pepper takes a step forward, untying Tony’s hoodie he hung over his shoulders and then pointing at the middle of his chest.

“If you really wanted another kid, you wouldn’t have done this,” she says, tapping the container that’s attached on his shirt. Tony looks down at the sort-of Arc reactor that isn’t really an arc reactor but just something he’s been working on in the past few days. It’s actually something he’s rather proud of, and he’s planning on perfecting it even more in the future.

“What does nano-technology have to do with it?” Tony asks, confused.

“You’re talking about adopting a child here, Tony! And sure, you have Peter and he can perfectly take care of himself, but the kid you’re intending on pulling along into your little family? They won’t have powers.”

“That’s exactly how this suit could help. Fight off the monsters in our closet and stuff.”

Pepper gives him a sad smile but crosses her arms.

“There shouldn’t be monsters in the closet,” Pepper mutters back. “Listen, Tony, I love you very much, but trust me when I say that bringing this up to Steve is moving _way_ too fast.”

Tony can’t help but feel a little bit betrayed here. He would have expected Pepper to back him up on this, maybe even chose different kinds of names for the kid. He was already planning on making her godmother, and he was sure Steve was going to make Bucky godfather.

But it seems like she’s not on board. And Tony should have known asking Pepper wasn’t the best idea; she has never been interested in having kids before, after all. She doesn’t understand this need Tony has, this _want_ of having kids to call his own. A little brother for Peter, or maybe a little sister. Or two of them. Or maybe even three.

He would love to be there during their childhood, be the father he hadn’t been able to be to Peter due to the lack of knowing he even existed.

But Pepper, the woman he goes to for all his questions, the woman who guides him to the better path, disagrees with him, makes it obvious that it _isn’t_ a good idea. And he hates it, because Pepper’s almost always right.

“So, how long is he staying this time?” Pepper suddenly asks. Tony clears his throat, pulling his mind out of the train of thought. She’s probably right, after all. It’s too soon. Way too soon.

“Uh, he said something about a week or so,” Tony starts. He blinks a couple of times. “But I-“

“Tony Stark!”

“Oh no,” Tony groans. Excited fans, he can handle. Happy children even more. But please, not…

“Strange,” Tony calls out distantly. The two of them haven’t been hanging out a lot in the past, mostly just short introductions and small arguments about magic, but that has been enough for Tony to strongly dislike the man.

The man who is currently standing in a floating circle-portal, with the Sanctum on the other side. He can vaguely see Wong standing there in the background. He gives Tony and Pepper a quick wave, and Pepper waves back. Tony just nods.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Tony asks, crossing his arms when he sees Strange there in that ridiculous outfit – seriously, out of all the superhero costumes he chose that? The dude looks like a hippie.

“A certain matter has come to my attention, and I need you to come with me,” the doctor says, low and heavy voice almost resonating through the whole park. What is it with these people with their heavy voices all the time?

“In case you hadn’t read it, I’m in a committed relationship,” Tony starts, holding up his hands in a ‘what will you do about it’-gesture. “I mean, not that I would even take you up on your offer because I just don’t _like_ you.”

“This is a serious matter, Stark,” Strange urges on. It’s Pepper who pokes Tony in the side.

“I think you should go,” she tells him, observing Strange with a worried glance. Then, suddenly on the other side of the portal, Bruce appears as well.

“Bruciebear? What are you doing there?” Tony suddenly asks. He waves at Pepper before walking up to the portal. He ignores Strange but rather just steps through it to face Bruce, who looks nervous. That’s never good.

“So, uh, you probably knew I’ve been visiting Strange lately to get the Hulk’s memories back about what happened on that ship, right?” Bruce starts, scratching his hair.

“Uh, no, not really. You keeping secrets from me, bro?” Tony asks, patting him on the shoulder before walking through the hall. He’s never really been here before, but he’s heard of the place through Peter, who seemed pretty impressed.

Well, if you like that baroque-kind of thing. Not really Tony’s style, after all.

“You were probably not paying attention,” Bruce mumbles out. “But, uh, we started doing that after the Asgardian survivors said some giant purple man killed Thor and Loki for a piece of stone.”

Tony tenses up. Right, he had heard about it, but since the whole business with the accords he hadn’t really paid much more attention to it. Besides, being the dad of a superhero is also pretty tiring business.

“Right,” Tony mutters. Bruce sighs again.

“I think you should better sit down,” he says, pointing towards the seat behind him. Tony obeys, feeling dread all over his body without even having heard anything about it.

And that’s when Wong starts explaining it. The Big Bang creating six elemental stones, two of which Tony has already encountered in the Tesseract and the Mind gem in Vision’s head. Wong explains how there are four more of them; the purple one for power, the red one for reality, the orange one for soul, and the green one for time – though Strange was rather theatrical of the reveal of the last stone.

“The purple man’s name, tell me?” Tony asks after a few seconds of silence. He can remember seeing Bruce this morning; he hadn’t been so… tense. They had joked over breakfast, agreed that they would go and tinker a bit later in the afternoon.

But now he’s the opposite of that Bruce. “Thanos,” he says. “He’s a plague, Tony. He invades planets, he takes what he wants, he wipes out half the population. He sent Loki; the attack on New York? That’s him!”

Tony nods, honestly feeling like he’s floating out of his body right now. There’s a thousand emotions going through him somehow. His mind telling him that he should have known, that he should not have forgotten what he built Ultron for.

“This is it,” Tony mutters lowly, inaudible to others. He takes a step back from Bruce, afraid that he might actually hit somebody that is standing too close to him. “What’s our timeline?” he asks, trying to keep his voice levelled.

“No telling. He has the Power and Space Stone, that already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe.”

Tony scratches his chin. If _Bruce_ thinks this guy’s the strongest, then that must really mean something. Tony walks up to the stairs, holding on to an ugly-looking pot to stretch his legs for a bit. The ache in his muscles is the only thing that might keep him sane while Bruce is panicking around him.

“If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony-“

“He can destroy life on a scale hither to undreamt of,” Strange continues.

“Did you seriously just say ‘hither to undreamt of’?” Tony asks, letting out a small grunt as he pulls on his leg.

“Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?” Suddenly, there’s a slap on his arm and Tony loses his balance. He turns around immediately, finding the three men looking at him with those serious, troubled eyes. Tony doesn’t like this one bit.

“I’m going to allow that,” Tony mutters out. “If Thanos needs al six, why don’t we just stick this one down the garbage disposal?”

Because his team loves to put things into the garbage disposal, don’t they?

“No can do,” Strange returns.

“We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives,” Wong adds dramatically. Tony rolls his eyes.

“And I swore off dairy, but then Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after me, so…”

Tony smiles, thinking back of that one hot afternoon after school, where he took Peter and May to the city and they had some ice cream. Peter liked The Captain America Cookie Dough, while Tony had to secretly admit he preferred the Bow’n’Arrow Bananas.

“Stark Raving Hazelnuts,” Strange points out.

“It’s not bad,” Tony returns with a shrug.

“A bit chalky,” Strange responds.

“’A Hunka-Hulka Burning Fudge’ is our favorite,” Wong adds.

“I’m sorry, but let’s not forget about Widow’s Watermelons,” Bruce interjects.

“Bruciebear, nobody likes watermelon-flavor, you’re just _missing_ her melons,” Tony says, patting his shoulder. In return he gets a very unimpressed look from his friend. “My point was, though, that things change.”

God, he had forgotten how easily distracted he always gets. Especially when it’s about him.

“Our oath to protect the Time Stone cannot change,” Strange says stubbornly. “This Stone may be the best chance we have against Thanos.”

“And still conversely, it may also be his best chance _against_ us!” Tony doesn’t mean to shout, but he’s feeling a bit nervous all of the sudden.

“Only if we don’t do our jobs,” Strange snaps back.

“And what exactly is your job, huh? Besides making balloon animals?”

“Protecting your reality, douche bag.”

Luckily, there’s still Bruce. “Okay, guys, can we quick cable this discussion right now? The fact is that we have the stone. We know where it is. Vision is out there somewhere with the Mind Stone, and we have to find him now.”

Tony then clears his throat, hand going up to scratch his hair. “Yeah, that’s the thing,” he starts. Bruce gives him a worried glance.

“What do you mean? He’s at the compound, isn’t he?” Bruce asks.

“Uh, no, not really. Vision is, uh… he’s on a holiday with his girlfriend.”

“With Wanda? But, you know where he is, right?” Bruce asks. Tony clears his throat.

“He went offline. They wanted just a week to themselves without any worries. I promised we wouldn’t, you know, call them or anything, so we can’t really reach them.”

“Tony, you lost another super bot?” Bruce asks nervously.

“I didn’t lose him! I know where he is, there’s no need to worry about that. We just- we can’t _call_ him, so somebody has to travel to Scotland.”

“I suggest that somebody is you?” Strange tries. Tony turns around, giving him an unimpressed look.

“I’m sorry, I can’t just _leave_ the country-“

“Yes, you can. You have no obligations here right now,” Strange interrupts him. Tony glares at him, pointing up a finger in his direction.

“You know damn well I do,” he hisses towards the sorcerer. Strange doesn’t flinch at all upon that reaction. Then Tony clears his throat. “What I meant was, with the accords being the way they are, I need permission to exit the states with the Quinjet and-“

“I think these matters are more important than legal travelling-“

“How about Steve?” Bruce then interjects. Tony turns towards him, automatically reacting to that name.

“What about Steve?” he asks.

“Well, he’s on his way to Wakanda, isn’t he? He could make a detour to Scotland, pick them up?”

“Uh, I guess,” Tony mumbles, not really wanting to interrupt Steve like that. Whenever he’s on important Bucky-time, Tony just rather stays out of it.

“Call him,” Bruce urges on. Tony sighs, lifting up a hand towards his brow. If he calls Steve, it means that this all, this big danger that is hanging over them, it’s real… “Listen to me, Tony. Thor’s gone. Thanos is coming. It doesn’t matter if you interrupt Bucky-time.”

Oh, so Bruce calls it Bucky-time, too. How quaint. Tony rolls his eyes, but eventually he does pick up the phone. He finds that he has a message from Peter, who tells him that he just left for the field trip. Tony smiles slightly, though it changes into a frown immediately when he realizes Peter has no idea what’s about to happen.

He quickly presses the call-button before his thoughts go too deep. Then he lifts up the phone to his ear. A quick lick of his lips is enough to make him realize that he’s nervous.

“ _Tony, is there something wrong?”_ Steve’s voice asks on the other side of the line. Shit, it aches to hear it, knowing that Steve is so far away.

“Hey, honey, uh,” Tony starts. There’s some sort of heavy sound around him, but he blames it on the noise through the phone. “Where are you now?”

“ _About an hour away from Wakanda, why? Are you missing me already?”_ Oh, his tone is teasing. Tony quickly rubs his eyes.

“Listen, I need you to make a detour to Scotland, pick up Viz and Wanda,” he starts.

“ _Shit, something went wrong with them? They didn’t have an argument, did they?”_

“I’m pretty sure they didn’t, just- the story is too long. Just trust me alright? Get Vision and Wanda, bring them back to New York or take them to Wakanda. Just… secure them.”

He hears Steve say something to Sam on the other side of the line. Tony, meanwhile, turns around, looking at Strange standing there in that ridiculous outfit with his ridiculous hair and his ridiculous face and-

Wait…

“Say, Doc, you wouldn’t happen to be moving your hair, would you?” Tony suddenly asks. With the phone removed from his ear, he comes to realize that that heavy noise did not come from the phone.

“Not at the moment, no,” Strange returns, looking up at the strand of hair that seems to be moving as if wind is blowing inside. When they look up through the round window, they can see some sort of metal scraps flying by.

“ _Tony? Tony!”_

Tony quickly puts the phone back against his ear. “Honey, I need to go. Just get them.”

Then he hangs up. Steve’s just going to have to forgive him for that. Carefully, the three men head towards the door, exiting the building to find themselves on the street.

The street where people are running, screaming, panicked. A woman even falls down on the ground in her haste. Tony runs up to her and pulls her up.

“You okay?” he asks, but she ignores him. Not even looking at him, she starts sprinting away from them as if her life is in serious danger. Tony startles when a car crashes against a pole.

Shit, the man inside looks like he’s bleeding. Tony points at the vehicle.

“Bruce, help him!” he says. Then he nods towards Wong and Strange. Pulling out his glasses, he puts it on his head to observe his surroundings. “FRI, what am I looking at?”

“ _Not sure, I’m working on it,”_ FRIDAY returns, though even she sounds nervous. How is that even possible? Tony turns towards Strange, pointing at that stupid necklace of him.

“Hey! You might wanna put that Time Sone in your back pocket, Doc!” he shouts. Strange slams his arms together until some weird orange circles appear around it.

“Might wanna use it,” he says instead. Tony is beyond answering that. He goes to stand at the corner of the street, sneaking a quick look around but turning back when a giant pink sign only barely misses him. He sees it flying away into the air until it crashes against a few cars.

That’s just dangerous. Especially with all these people running here. There are already too many of them on the ground, probably accidentally run over by cars or crushed by flying objects. With a sad look around, he’s once again reminded about the bad sides of being a superhero.

Now, what are the odds of a giant flying donut-looking spaceship hovering right next to the street that they were in? That, along with the odds of it appearing right after Bruce finally seems to remember something?

“FRIDAY, evac anyone south of 43rd Street. Notify first responders,” Tony says, holding on to the door of a car to make sure that he doesn’t fly away from the wind.

“ _Will do_ ,” FRIDAY returns. Suddenly an orange flash passes him by, forming some sort of barrier that approaches the ship. All the dust that has been flying through the wind goes along with it, stopping right against the ship.

Huh… Strange actually stopped the engines… how about that? When Tony turns to look at him, and actually tell him that he did a good job, that clown actually has the nerve to wink at him.

It’s so… Tony thinks he should feel annoyed, but all he can do is grin. After all, the dude stopped a giant spaceship the height of Stark Tower. Instead of saying anything at all, Tony starts walking towards the blue light that origins from the ship. Two characters appear on the street, as if they’ve been transported down by it. There’s a tall, ugly one, and then a skinny ugly one. Yeah, they’re both ugly.

“Hear me, and rejoice,” the skinny one starts. “You are about to die at the hands of the children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to-“

Okay, Tony has had enough of that.

“I’m sorry, Earth is closed today,” he returns loudly, trying the best he can to keep his cool. “You better pack it up and get outta here.”

_Far, far away. So far. Not this near to Peter. Not on this planet._

“Stone keeper,” Skinny says, turning towards Strange. “Does this chattering animal speak for you?”

“Certainly not, I speak for myself,” Strange says, making another weird move with his hands until more orange glowing things appear. “There’s no trespassing in this city and on this planet.” Next to them, Wong does the same thing.

“It means get lost, Squidward!” Tony knows Steve has told him something about pissing off his enemies, but he just can’t help it. Skinny puts his hands together, slightly turning his head towards the big one holding an axe and telling him something. Tony can’t hear what it is.

Instead, he directs his next words to Bruce. “Hey, do you want a piece?” he asks, as if he’s offering Bruce his last piece of pie. That in itself is really rare since Tony doesn’t share his pie.

“No, not really,” Bruce mutters out nervously. “But when do I ever get what I want?”

“That’s right,” Tony smirks, not removing his eyes from Big, who is trying to make fancy, menacing movements with that axe of his. “It’s been a while. Good to have you, buddy.”

And that’s true; he hasn’t seen the Hulk since Ultron, which is a long-ass time ago. Since Bruce came back on Earth, he hasn’t had any incidents, which Tony thought had mostly to do with the guy being better adjusted after spending some time on a nerve-wrecking planet.

“I just… I need to concentrate here for one second,” Bruce returns. Huh, Tony wouldn’t have expected _Bruce_ to actually respond. How about that? “Come on, come on, man.”

Big smashes his axe against a car, sending it flying to the side.

“Where’s your guy?” Tony asks, suddenly nervous. Bruce already looks defeated.

“I don’t know. We’re certainly having a thing,” he returns.

“There’s no time for a thing!” Tony says, putting a hand on Bruce’s shoulder and pointing at Big running up to them. “That’s the thing right there, let’s go.”

Bruce tries again, letting out another loud grunt. There’s a slight bit of green appearing in his throat, but that seems about it. Strange gives him a look that indicates ‘hurry up’.

“Dude, you’re embarrassing me in front of the wizard,” Tony says quietly in Bruce’s direction.

“I can’t- he won’t-“

Tony rolls his eyes. He’s dealt with Peter enough to know when to just stop. He puts a hand on Bruce’s shoulder and gently pushes him back.

“It’s okay, stand down,” he says. Giving Wong a short look, he continues: “Can I leave you with him?”

“I have him,” Wong returns.

“Thank you,” Tony finishes. He supposes today’s as good a day as any to be wearing the workout cloths. With a quick movement, he pulls on the two cords, tightening up the suit around him. At least that way it’s less baggy when he does his next thing. Tapping his finger on the container on his chest, he feels the metal starting to emerge around him.

Big is starting to run. Tony walks forward as well. He throws his glasses to the side, hoping they’re not broken, since they were the best pair he has. When he sees Big swing his axe in his direction, Tony lets the suit form a shield on his arm, which he uses to stop the blow.

Oh, he likes trying out new stuff on bad guys. It doesn’t take too long to throw Big onto Skinny, though the latter just simply swings his right hand to the side and barely avoids him with some weird telekinesis-shit.

“Are those the nanos?” Bruce asks. Of course he knows about them; Tony involved him in the process of making them, after all.

“Yeah, pretty neat, no?” Right when Bruce is about to respond, Tony’s flying up in the air, a grunt leaving his mouth.

That skinny son of a bitch actually threw him into the sky? Well goddamnit! After getting his thrusters to work, Tony turns around to fly back in the direction of the battle. It’s dusty, and messy, and it turns out that Skinny is way more difficult to handle than Big due to the fact that he can move objects with his mind, but Tony’s sure they’ll figure something out.

Tony tries to get Strange and the Stone to leave the battle. Sadly, Strange is a crazy son of a bitch who doesn’t listen to people. He does his best to get the two of them away from the wizard. It only gets him thrown around the place, making him end up in the park he had only just left.

With Pepper.

Oh, shit, is she alright?! Please, say that Happy picked her up after Tony left!

“Tony, you okay? How we doing, good? Bad?”

Oh, that’s Bruce. Tony grunts, realizing he’s leaning against a tree.

“Really, really good. Really good. Do you plan on helping out?” he tries. He feels a faint pain in his side on the place of his scar, but he’s sure that’s just mostly mentally since it hasn’t been hurting for a while now.

“I’m trying, he won’t come out.”

There’s the axe doing a full Mjölnir on them and swinging in Bruce’s direction. Tony jumps up, pushing the scientist out of the way.

And, okay, maybe he was too quick with his words; Skinny isn’t exactly more difficult to hit than Big. They’re both equally annoying and fast. Everything Tony throws at him, Big counters with either a shield or his axe. It mostly gets a tree to fall over Bruce rather than actually hurt Big.

Tony barely realizes he’s thrown onto the ground until he sees a red-and-blue flash appear in front of him. His heart skips a beat, but not in the good way, when he sees his own goddamn son standing there, holding that axe that was about to crush Tony into a pile of goo.

“Hey man!” Peter greets Big before turning to Tony. “What’s up, Dad?”

Tony rolls his eyes. He really needs to have another conversation with him about what they’re supposed to call each other in public when they’re like this.

“Where’d you come from?!” Tony asks a bit more loudly than he wanted.

“The field trip,” Peter explains, though his last word is more shouted when Big grabs Peter’s entire body in one hand and throws him over the park.

Now, Tony can handle a lot, but having people treat his son like that? That’s a no-go in many, many forms. He jumps onto his feet and starts flying around Big to annoy him while at the same time hitting him with some of his lasers.

“What is this guy’s problem, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks from where he’s standing up, all the way back at the fountain. Well, at least he remembers now that ‘Dad’ is not acceptable while dressed as Spider-Man.

“He’s from space. He came here to steal a necklace from a wizard.”

That’s just about the closest he can get to it.

Fighting alongside Peter is at the same time the best and the worst thing. Mostly, it drives Tony a lot to go all the way and even more whenever he sees somebody trying to hurt his boy, but at the same time the worst thing is to see Peter being thrown around the place like he’s nothing but a piece of toy.

Despite that they work good together. It’s proven when the two of them manage to throw a car on Big while keeping a well enough distance between them.

Oh, he just hopes that Strange isn’t doing stupid things.

As if on cue, Strange comes flying by so fast Tony almost misses him. He sees Peter looking at him as well. He doesn’t look conscious, though.

“Spidey, that’s the wizard. Get on it!”

“On it!” Peter shouts back, swinging out of the park. Tony regrets his words immediately; he hates seeing Peter in battle, but it’s worse when he’s out there, far from Tony. He just has to trust that his son can hold his own for now.

It’s not even two minutes later when he hears Peter’s voice in his ears.

“ _Uh, Dad, I’m being beamed up_ ,” Peter says, sounding a bit breathless.

“Hang on, son!” Tony shouts without realizing it. He would fly off, but it seems like Big doesn’t give him much of a chance to do so. When the jerk actually throws some electrifying device onto him, making him unable to move, he figures that he’s pretty much toast right here.

Good thing that Wong is still paying attention, though.

“Wong you’re invited to my next birthday party,” Tony calls out towards the wizard who just sent Big into a whole other place, leaving nothing but the monster’s hand behind when he closed the portal on him.

Tony doesn’t hesitate further, he flies up in the air, seeing that the spaceship is already high in the sky. 

_Shit Peter is there not my Peter shit shit shit!_

“FRIDAY give me a little juice!” Tony asks. FRIDAY puts up the boosters onto his boots, and his tempo picks up. In his ear, he can hear Peter letting out difficult breaths. “Unlock 17-A.”

The thing is still going up. The sky above them is no longer looking the usual blue, instead turning into a darker color. And Peter’s still up there.

“Pete, you gotta let go, I’ll catch you.”

“ _But you told me to get the wizard!”_ Peter returns.

“You’re too high up, you’re running out of air.” It hurts, to hear Peter gasp for breath the way he does. Tony tries all he can to go even faster, but it seems like that’s just not happening.

“ _Ye- that makes sense,”_ he hears Peter force out. A small feeling of glee passes him by when another thing flies right by him, though at the same time he’s feeling only horror when he sees Peter losing his grip on the ship, falling down to crash against it. Right at the point where Tony’s about to scream out for him, the Iron Spider reaches Peter and surrounds itself around Tony’s son. Tony finds himself letting out a breath of relief, especially when he can hear Peter gasp for breath once more in his ears.

“ _Dad, it smells like a new car in here!”_ Peter jokes out.

“Happy trails, Peter. FRI, send him home.”

“ _Yup_ ,” FRIDAY returns. Tony doesn’t turn to look how the parachute on Peter’s suit breaks out, pulling the teenager off the ship. He can vaguely hear Peter mutter ‘come on’ in his commlink, but he can’t pay too much attention to it.

Peter’s safe, that’s enough for Tony. He needs to get Strange now, after all. He forces himself onto the ship, only taking one step inside when FRIDAY speaks up.

“ _Boss, incoming call from Captain Rogers_.”

Tony doesn’t even tell her to pick up, she knows automatically to just put him through.

“ _Tony! What the hell is happening, are you alright?!”_

Shit, Tony feels his eyes sting upon hearing Steve’s voice. He reaches for his chest, but the metal suit is in the way for him to reach his scar.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just- we’re fine.”

 _“’We’re’?”_ Steve asks. “ _Tony is Peter with you?”_

“No, he isn’t. I sent him home. He has a parachute. Just, when you see him, tell him to keep out of trouble.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Because I probably… won’t be back for a while.”

“ _Tony… tell me you’re not on that ship?”_ Tony retracts the helmet just so he can look around the place with his own to eyes. He can hear the worry in Steve’s voice; the guy must probably be looking at a live feed or something. “ _Please, Tony, tell me you’re flying right back to Earth and that you and Peter are going to be there when I’m back from-“_

“I’m sorry, honey,” Tony returns, feeling a tear roll out of his eyes.

“ _No! Get out of there! This is not something we do! Space is not what we do, Tony! Get out of there!”_

“I can’t,” Tony returns, though he can feel the connection losing. He takes a shaky breath. “I love you.”

“ _Ton-… Swear to Go-… so much…”_

“ _Boss, I’m losi-… you, too…”_

After that, it’s silent in his ears. No more FRIDAY, no more Steve. He’s too far away.

Much to his unawareness, outside the ship, Peter finishes his climb back on the vehicle, looking down at the world underneath him with a shaky breath, his back pressed against the metal behind him.

“I should have stayed on that bus,” he mutters as a hatch closes on top of him, opening another one behind him.


	4. This Morning

_**Steve** _

_“Hey, you okay?”_

_“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”_

_Steve smiled, reaching out a hand until it was slowly caressing Tony’s cheek. The engineer just looked at him with tired brown eyes._

_“I know you hate it when I leave,” Steve returned. Tony hummed out for a bit, closing his eyes and turning a bit to the side. Then he started stretching his limbs._

_“Don’t worry,” Tony said in reassurance. “I know how much Bucky-time means to you. It’ll do him well, too, after all.”_

_Steve could only look at him, realizing that it might be longer than a week until he’d see that face again. Quietly, he leaned forward until his lips were against Tony’s jaw._

_“I’ll miss you,” Steve said. After that, he gets himself seated up, where he reached to the side to grab a pair of pants. “So, do you have any plans tomorrow?”_

_“Nah, not really,” Tony returned, though with a little smile on his face. “Are you seriously getting dressed? You have another hour before you leave?”_

_Steve turned for a bit, looking Tony straight in the eyes._

_“If I don’t get dressed now, I might not ever be,” he returned jokingly. Tony rolled his eyes, sitting up on his knees and crawling in Steve’s direction. Once he’d thrown his arms over Steve’s shoulder, Tony put his head next to Steve’s._

_“After you get back, we should have a vacation of our own,” Tony said, kissing Steve on the side of his neck. “We should go to Malibu for a bit, go to the beach.”_

_Steve had smiled while turning his head to get his lips on Tony’s. Even after a few months, it still felt heavenly to have him so close._

_“I think I’ll take you up on that offer. When I’m back, alright?” Steve asked after pulling back. Then he started getting up, making Tony pull away his arms. He was about to lean forward and take his boxers from the ground when Tony suddenly grabbed his hand and pulled him back onto the bed._

_“You don’t have to leave right away, right? Everything’s already packed,” Tony suggested. Steve laughed._

_“Honey, if I’m late Nat and Sam won’t let me hear the end of it,” Steve returned before his mouth was one again covered with Tony’s. Now lying down on his back, Tony took advantage of the position by leaning over Steve during their kiss._

_“It’s just a bit of teasing. You don’t have to be embarrassed about sex,” Tony told him, biting his lower lip gently. Steve let out a shaky breath, his hands finding themselves on Tony’s bare back all the sudden._

_Tony was right, of course. It was just a bit of teasing, and it would be longer than a week until Steve could have this again. It wouldn’t be too bad to enjoy it one last time before he left._

“Hey, Steve, you okay?”

Steve looks up to the side. They’re still in the jet, the vehicle flying _much_ faster than it should as they try to reach Scotland as quickly as they could. Next to him is Natasha, looking at him with a worried look in her eyes. She reaches out a hand and puts it on Steve’s shoulder.

“Not really,” Steve admits, feeling like it would not amount to anything if he would lie. Natasha would read right through it, after all.

Natasha doesn’t say anything. There isn’t much left to talk about, after all. He knows as well as her that there’s a strong chance Tony might not return. And then to make it even worse he can’t even reach Peter. Even when he called May, she could only tell him that Peter hadn’t been home and that she was worried sick.

“I just wish he would call,” Steve admits. Natasha sighs.

“Steve, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think there’s a very strong chance Peter followed Tony on the ship.”

Steve shakes his head. “He couldn’t, Tony had FRIDAY send him home. She would have made sure-“

Wait, that’s it! FRIDAY!

“FRIDAY?”

“ _Yes, Captain Rogers?”_

“FRI, I know you’re probably busy, but… can you tell me if Peter’s suit is still on Earth?” He can hear Sam take a sharp breath back at the controls of the ship. Natasha just takes Steve’s hand into her own and she gently squeezes his fingers.

“ _I’m sorry, Captain Rogers. I cannot reach Peter’s suit at the moment. I’m afraid he’s out of my reach_.”

Steve grits his teeth together, feeling the strong urge to start crying on the spot but instead doing everything he can to hold it in. He’s aware he could be crushing Natasha’s finger under his grip. He can’t really stop it. It’s the only thing keeping him from slamming his fist against the walls of the Quinjet.

Tony’s in outer space, and Peter went along with him.


End file.
